Yes there will be change, the police will resemble more and more the executive arm of the Gestapo but with bigger guns and not as organized.
I wonder if the riots of the last few years are not the first shots in a coming American racial war, you can´t deny that the tensions between whites and blacks are rapidly approaching boiling point.
I hear a lot of people saying: "well they are rioting because they are disenfranchised!"
Uhh! What? Ever since the Brown vs. the School Board stopped segregation in schools way back in 1955, blacks have had an equal playing field in education, education leads to jobs, jobs lead to security, so why do the cites burn, why are the majority of inner city blacks semi-literate? Has every law passed that gives blacks an equal stake in the American dream been for nothing?
I don´t buy the (blacks) assumption that their situation is whitey´s fault, whites passed Brown vs. the School Board, white feds and white troops made it work, almost the entire congress was white in the civil rights act in 1964, and above all whites fought and died ending slavery.
Whites support affirmative action and welfare systems, without which blacks would starve in the inner cities, all the programs and initiatives to bring blacks out of the slums has failed. They won´t or simply can´t assimilate, during my time in the States I heard the term "it´s because of cultural heritage" tossed around, from people who can´t find Africa on a globe, name a single country or speak any one of the African languages.
Sometimes I wonder if Apartheid would be the way to go, whites and blacks hate each other, white police in black neighborhoods isn´t a good idea, nor is having black cops in a white one, forcing blacks into overly white schools doesn´t work, without black studies and sports most wouldn´t graduate, (ok so there is a sliding scale) the few low income jobs still around in Detroit or Chicago or Birmingham are taken by better qualified whites, so why not have schools for blacks, black neighborhoods patrolled by black police, before Brown vs. the School Board there was the separate but equal doctrine, and that kind of worked, perhaps a 21st century version could avoid the mistakes of Jim Crow.
Would it be worth a shot? Perhaps if more cities burn..!

but Brown v Board didn't actually desegregate the US school system at all. we Americans use our public school and property tax systems as a means of ensuring that our black communities stay warehoused in de facto reservations, which we like to euphemistically call our "urban centers". then we use our criminal justice system as a means of ensuring that young men and women are raised in single family homes, further ensuring the sanctity of the cycle. it is no coincidence, after all, that criminality and education outcomes are more or less identical in our black and Native American communities.

at the risk of raising the specter of Godwin, let's try it this way - despite having had absolutely nothing to do with their very unfortunate plight, we Americans have thrown literally trillions of dollars at Israel and the Jewish diaspora. by contract, we have invested virtually nothing in our black communities, short of the bare minimum necessary to keep them fed enough to stay out of our white neighborhoods.

again, this is by no means an excuse for crime or violence. but blaming a dude who you enslaved and then disadvantaged for 400 years for not picking himself up by the proverbial bootstraps fast enough just because you changed a couple of laws seems a little counter-productive.

The following 11 users would like to thank crazygringo for this useful post:

but Brown v Board didn't actually desegregate the US school system at all. we Americans use our public school and property tax systems as a means of ensuring that our black communities stay warehoused in de facto reservations, which we like to euphemistically call our "urban centers". then we use our criminal justice system as a means of ensuring that young men and women are raised in single family homes, further ensuring the sanctity of the cycle. it is no coincidence, after all, that criminality and education outcomes are more or less identical in our black and Native American communities.

at the risk of raising the specter of Godwin, let's try it this way - despite having had absolutely nothing to do with their very unfortunate plight, we Americans have thrown literally trillions of dollars at Israel and the Jewish diaspora. by contract, we have invested virtually nothing in our black communities, short of the bare minimum necessary to keep them fed enough to stay out of our white neighborhoods.

again, this is by no means an excuse for crime or violence. but blaming a dude who you enslaved and then disadvantaged for 400 years for not picking himself up by the proverbial bootstraps fast enough just because you changed a couple of laws seems a little counter-productive.

Is that the royal "we" you are using? We think it presumptuous to speak for the entire country.
Word for the day: Nosism.

this. most schools are funded by property taxes. if you look at the top schools in the country you can also find very high property taxes. these are quite closed communities- if you can afford a house there, you have to think about then paying +15,000 a year in property taxes and being able to get a mortgage, etc etc etc.

the second problem is that it is almost certainly white officers policing black communities and unfortunately, often these officers have no training, experience or care to understand the communities that they are policing. there have been lot's of data shown on the effect of having police officers policing their own communities and the effects of this- very interesting. if you take a white suburban american guy who has been brought up in a certain way and put him to police in the south bronx, newark or baltimore- given what little he knows about the people and culture he is policing and his assumptions/fear/biases, well that will not end well. an interesting thing to check out is the bit that this american life did on police officers a while ago- for those who are interested the link

it isn't as black/white as it appears and having had some experience with cops in nyc (no, i'm not a felon, yet ) i can say it doesn't work well when you throw a white bread rookie into the hood and give him a gun. but i'm also not convinced it is just about race but more about community, how invested people are in where they work/live and that goes doubly for police. the whole racial situation in the u.s is very complex and it is also very varied- so it's not really useful to say something about the country as a whole. it isn't really that whole.

what happens/happened in baltimore is crazy- but having spent some time there in the past, i can say it was always a city on the edge in terms of tension and poverty and opportunity. it is also (and has been) very segregated. so while it pains me to see all this, it doesn't surprise me in the least. as was said, there are times when you have had enough and it can take any little (or big) reason to just tip the bucket to extremes. i'm not so sure that all blacks or whatever were looting and whatnot- but hey, that also sells and works for a certain slant, doesn't it? and as for the whole slavery issue, while the times may have change, economic opportunity and upward mobility is a luxury for some. it's not a level playing field in many places.

__________________
'there isn't enough of anything as long as we live.
but at intervals a sweetness appears and, given a chance prevails'

The following 9 users would like to thank amaraya for this useful post:

but Brown v Board didn't actually desegregate the US school system at all. we Americans use our public school and property tax systems as a means of ensuring that our black communities stay warehoused in de facto reservations, which we like to euphemistically call our "urban centers". then we use our criminal justice system as a means of ensuring that young men and women are raised in single family homes, further ensuring the sanctity of the cycle. it is no coincidence, after all, that criminality and education outcomes are more or less identical in our black and Native American communities.

at the risk of raising the specter of Godwin, let's try it this way - despite having had absolutely nothing to do with their very unfortunate plight, we Americans have thrown literally trillions of dollars at Israel and the Jewish diaspora. by contract, we have invested virtually nothing in our black communities, short of the bare minimum necessary to keep them fed enough to stay out of our white neighborhoods.

again, this is by no means an excuse for crime or violence. but blaming a dude who you enslaved and then disadvantaged for 400 years for not picking himself up by the proverbial bootstraps fast enough just because you changed a couple of laws seems a little counter-productive.

Point taken, Brown v Board did not end segregation overnight but as a precedent it was a focus point for a civil movement that was already underway, segregation was no longer en vogue.
Yes America and others invest godzilians in Israel, but the US has invested trillions in the F35 project at the cost of civil infrastructure but that in neither here nor there, the question is: "do black communities get more than white communities" I had a look at the stats,
(http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/...ending_40.html) they are byzantine to say the least, but I can't find anything that shows that white communities get more basic investment than black communities, it seems to me that the playing field is pretty even, what is not even is that black communities need more by the way of welfare than do white communities.

In my humble opinion it's not only about the money, everything possible is being done to give the black community the same opportunities as everybody else enjoys, so what went wrong in Detorit, Chicago south side, Jackson, Birmingham?

at the risk of raising the specter of Godwin, let's try it this way - despite having had absolutely nothing to do with their very unfortunate plight, we Americans have thrown literally trillions of dollars at Israel and the Jewish diaspora. by contract, we have invested virtually nothing in our black communities, short of the bare minimum necessary to keep them fed enough to stay out of our white neighborhoods.

Oh, but didn't they fund the revolution, and gave us acetone for our bombs?

Is that the royal "we" you are using? We think it presumptuous to speak for the entire country.
Word for the day: Nosism.

That situation in Baltimore is part of its political industry. Underneath are power plays between politicians, bureaucrats, community organizers, and organized crimes. At stake are political power, public funding and even territories for the drug trade. Its actually the true social structure of the city. Those who live there know the game and know "what's up". Its a cynical play on the civil rights movement. It certainly appears outwardly racist - a white ruling class oppressing its black underclass. But there are plenty of black power brokers who are profiting from this racist framework. Because without the racism, some of these power brokers don't have much of a purpose. So they all of them work with and sustain this racist arrangement through endemic corruption. Because its like that, and that's the way it is.

In my humble opinion it's not only about the money, everything possible is being done to give the black community the same opportunities as everybody else enjoys, so what went wrong in Detorit, Chicago south side, Jackson, Birmingham?

The CIA sure gave the black community a great opportunity to smoke crack cocaine in the 80's, whether intentionally or by just looking the other way...

Near my hometown in PA the small black community was given a great opportunity to get more exercise when the local politicians/cops/'good 'ol boys' blew up all the bridges leading into the black neighborhood back in the 60's… which to this day have never been repaired…

That said, I don't think 'whitey' is entirely to blame for the mess, and that the US black population in general has a lot of self-inflicted problems as well. But it's not surprising that after being treated like animals for so long, and having been stripped of cultural identity to the point of not knowing who your ancestors were or where they came from, that the black population seems reluctant to join the system that treated them/treats them so badly. (though they are part of it, like it or not..)

The following 4 users would like to thank pilatus1 for this useful post:

That said, I don't think 'whitey' is entirely to blame for the mess, and that the US black population in general has a lot of self-inflicted problems as well. But it's not surprising that after being treated like animals for so long, and having been stripped of cultural history to the point of not knowing who your ancestors were or where they came from, that the black population seems reluctant to join the system that treated them/treats them so badly. (though they are part of it, like it or not..)

Be very careful about speaking of "the blacks" and "the whites". These are not singular entities. Within them are groups and personalities that claim to represent the whole, which is a huge part of the problem in itself.

Huh? The Baltimore riots are just a ruse by the black community to increase fed. spending? That's what this is about, really?:roll eyes:

I read the article, and the content doesn't match the headline. The only mention about what the fed. $ could/would be used for is body cameras and more police training. Are you against this, or just against the idea of fed. $ being used for it?

A bit off topic, but:
Mo' money is everyone's game. If you think that republicans don't want to spend fed $, you've been deluded. Bush jr. ran the biggest civil government in history, in terms of the budget - while Obama has increased gov't spending very little in comparison…

Republican states are a bigger drain on fed. $ than the dem. states. I always find it amusing that most Alaskans are such staunch republicans, while the whole state is dependent on federal subsidies….

Now don't you go thinking that i'm supporting the dems here - just pointing out inconsistencies in republican doctrine vs. reality. I despise both parties equally - two sides of the same coin, who need each other to survive. It's all about power and $ for the elite, while convincing the little people that it's always the other party's fault…

Yes there will be change, the police will resemble more and more the executive arm of the Gestapo but with bigger guns and not as organized.
I wonder if the riots of the last few years are not the first shots in a coming American racial war, you can´t deny that the tensions between whites and blacks are rapidly approaching boiling point.
I hear a lot of people saying: "well they are rioting because they are disenfranchised!"
Uhh! What? Ever since the Brown vs. the School Board stopped segregation in schools way back in 1955, blacks have had an equal playing field in education, education leads to jobs, jobs lead to security, so why do the cites burn, why are the majority of inner city blacks semi-literate? Has every law passed that gives blacks an equal stake in the American dream been for nothing?
I don´t buy the (blacks) assumption that their situation is whitey´s fault, whites passed Brown vs. the School Board, white feds and white troops made it work, almost the entire congress was white in the civil rights act in 1964, and above all whites fought and died ending slavery.
Whites support affirmative action and welfare systems, without which blacks would starve in the inner cities, all the programs and initiatives to bring blacks out of the slums has failed. They won´t or simply can´t assimilate, during my time in the States I heard the term "it´s because of cultural heritage" tossed around, from people who can´t find Africa on a globe, name a single country or speak any one of the African languages.Sometimes I wonder if Apartheid would be the way to go, whites and blacks hate each other, white police in black neighborhoods isn´t a good idea, nor is having black cops in a white one, forcing blacks into overly white schools doesn´t work, without black studies and sports most wouldn´t graduate, (ok so there is a sliding scale) the few low income jobs still around in Detroit or Chicago or Birmingham are taken by better qualified whites, so why not have schools for blacks, black neighborhoods patrolled by black police, before Brown vs. the School Board there was the separate but equal doctrine, and that kind of worked, perhaps a 21st century version could avoid the mistakes of Jim Crow.
Would it be worth a shot? Perhaps if more cities burn..!

I can well understand these frustrations but that's not the way forward, and you know it.
How would that help? Isn't society stratified enough? (everywhere, not just in the USA)

Now don't you go thinking that i'm supporting the dems here - just pointing out inconsistencies in republican doctrine vs. reality. I despise both parties equally - two sides of the same coin, who need each other to survive. It's all about power and $ for the elite, while convincing the little people that it's always the other party's fault…

The city of Baltimore has been under the Democrat's governance since 1967. The includes control of the City Hall, the schools, the unions and even the police force. We do know how the democrats roll. See here from 1967 onwards:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...s_of_Baltimore

Of course, in turn, they say its because the Republicans are racist and stingy.

They won´t or simply can´t assimilate, during my time in the States I heard the term "it´s because of cultural heritage" tossed around, from people who can´t find Africa on a globe, name a single country or speak any one of the African languages.

Let's talk about whites for a minute. Why couldn't they assimilate into Native American culture? Why did they have to get all violent?

Be very careful about speaking of "the blacks" and "the whites". These are not singular entities. Within them are groups and personalities that claim to represent the whole, which is a huge part of the problem in itself.

Of course, in turn, they say its because the Republicans are racist and stingy.

What could be done if they indeed are? Isn't this quote from that great champion Republican president, Eisenhower: "These are not bad people. All they are concerned about is to see that their sweet little girls are not required to sit in school alongside some big overgrown Negroes"
This in relation to the Brown vs Edu Board case already alluded in a previous post.